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A Mother, a Daughter, and More Than 30 Years of Aromatherapy, Education, and Natural Wellness

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Casaroma Wellness began with two women who loved their work but wanted something more from life: the freedom to be present for their families while building something meaningful together.

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More than thirty years later, what began with essential oils, a market table, and a great deal of curiosity has become a family business offering our own natural wellness products, personalized consultations, and educational guidance to people across Canada.

We are Allana and LyzaLee, mother and daughter, and this is our story.

 

Our Story — How Casaroma Began

Long before Casaroma existed, we had already spent years working together. LyzaLee began working alongside Allana in the retail industry when she was eighteen, and both eventually developed successful management careers. LyzaLee became a regional supervisor responsible for twenty-five stores throughout Atlantic Canada, while Allana held a senior management position with a multinational retailer, based in Ontario and travelling extensively across the country.

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We enjoyed our work, the challenges, the people, and the opportunities those careers provided. But in the early 1990s, our growing family began changing what mattered most to us.

LyzaLee was raising her first child and expecting her second. After years of supervising stores and travelling throughout the Atlantic provinces, she knew that returning to that schedule would mean spending considerable time away from her children. She chose to leave her position and build a business that would allow her to work while being present as they grew.

For Allana, the news of another grandchild was the nudge that changed everything. Her career had been rewarding, with excellent opportunities and responsibilities she genuinely enjoyed, but it had also meant missing precious moments with her grandson, including his birth. With another grandchild on the way, she began thinking about the first steps, the family celebrations, and the ordinary afternoons that give grandparents and grandchildren the opportunity to really know one another.

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Allana gave her employer six months' notice. During that time, she moved from Ontario back to Nova Scotia, found a home near her daughter and grandchildren, and began preparing for a new direction.

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She had always loved nutrition and aromatherapy, and toward the end of those six months, she began studying at the Maritime School of Health and Well-Being. Her education included working in a care setting with people living with blindness, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and other significant challenges. Those experiences opened up new possibilities for using aromatherapy in personal care.

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Before long, Allana was welcoming clients into a little office beside a pizza shop near our homes in Beaver Bank, providing massage and aromatherapy services. Meanwhile, LyzaLee was operating Create a Sign, a small business run from her basement, engraving pet identification tags and taking the equipment to markets.

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As Allana prepared for her aromatherapy examinations, LyzaLee helped her study. The more they learned and discussed, the more LyzaLee became interested in essential oils herself.

And so, another chapter of our working partnership began.

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From a Market Table to a House of Scent

Our first market table at Alderney Landing in Dartmouth brought our two interests together. Alongside the engraving equipment and pet tags, we began introducing people to aromatherapy and essential oils.

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At that time, aromatherapy was unfamiliar to many people in Nova Scotia. Finding a good selection of quality essential oils locally was difficult, and customers had plenty of questions. What were essential oils? How were they used? What made one oil different from another? How did you decide which one was appropriate?

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We discovered that people were interested, but they needed someone willing to explain what they were purchasing.

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As our aromatherapy business developed, Create a Sign gradually came to an end and Casaroma took its place. The name grew from those early beginnings, incorporating a connection to our former business and the idea of a house of scent.

The market table became a kiosk and eventually a shop, all within Alderney Landing.

Allana had always loved the waterfront, the ferry terminal, and the view across Halifax Harbour, so the location was especially dear to her. For approximately thirty years, Alderney Landing was Casaroma's home. It was where we met thousands of people, taught classes, developed products, shared stories, and formed relationships with customers who often became friends.

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The Products Our Customers Helped Us Create

In the beginning, our business was almost entirely essential oils. We had not yet developed the large collection of personal care and aromatherapy products that Casaroma offers today.

Those products came from conversations.

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People would come into the shop with questions, explain what they were looking for, and describe the products or approaches they had already tried. We would consider what we knew about essential oils, their characteristics and applications, and develop a blend that suited the person's needs and preferences.

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Sometimes a formulation worked well from the beginning. Other times, we adjusted it, changed the proportions, reconsidered an ingredient, or found a different way to use the oils.

When another customer came in looking for something similar, we could draw on that earlier work. Gradually, certain formulations proved useful and popular enough to become regular products on our shelves.

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This is how much of Casaroma's product collection came into being. Rather than beginning with a catalogue of products we wanted to sell, we developed formulas through the people we were working with and what we learned along the way.

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More than thirty years later, we continue formulating and customizing products, applying our education and experience to the individual rather than assuming that one preparation is the right choice for everyone.

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Teaching Aromatherapy for 25 Years

As our business grew, we realized that selling essential oils was only part of what we wanted to do. Many customers had never encountered aromatherapy before, and we wanted them to understand the oils they were bringing into their homes.

That led us to begin teaching aromatherapy classes, something we continued for approximately twenty-five years.

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Through those classes, we shared knowledge about essential oils, their properties, blending, appropriate applications, and the many considerations involved in using them. We also continued learning ourselves, bringing new studies, practical observations, and years of formulation experience into what we taught.

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Although we paused our regular classes in 2025, education continues to be part of our everyday work. Our consultations, educational articles, and conversations with customers are all opportunities to share what we have learned. We hope to return to offering aromatherapy classes as Casaroma's next chapter develops.

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Hurricanes, New Possibilities, and Starting Again

Building a family business over more than three decades has meant experiencing some wonderful accomplishments and some very difficult days.

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One of those days came in September 2003, when Hurricane Juan struck Nova Scotia.

Our shop at Alderney Landing was flooded with approximately five feet of water, destroying much of the store and around eighty percent of our inventory. Years of work were suddenly sitting in floodwater, and we faced the enormous task of rebuilding.

Fortunately, family was close at hand. Allana's son Peter happened to be home for a visit when the hurricane arrived. Together with the rest of the family, he helped us begin putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.

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And we did.

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From that upheaval came new opportunities. We rebuilt our shop, and Peter's interests and knowledge introduced us to electronic wellness equipment, biofeedback, and other complementary practices. Allana went on to develop extensive experience in biofeedback, and it remains one of the services she most enjoys providing to clients today.

Our work continued to grow in other ways as well. LyzaLee pursued further education in fitness, nutrition, Reiki, and complementary wellness practices, adding new perspectives to the work we could offer. Over time, Casaroma expanded beyond Alderney Landing, with additional operations in Hantsport, Nova Scotia, and on Canada's West Coast.

Throughout those years, we continued developing products, teaching, working with clients, and exploring new ways to bring together our knowledge and interests.

 

Then came COVID-19.

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The pandemic, closures, and the difficult years that followed changed our business in ways we could never have anticipated. We lost stores and much of the retail structure we had spent decades building. Once again, we faced the challenge of deciding how to carry on.

For a business that had grown through face-to-face relationships, the move toward online shopping and remote services was an enormous change.

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LyzaLee took on much of the work of learning and developing the systems needed to bring Casaroma into the online world. Website management, online shopping, shipping, digital communication, and reaching customers who might never have visited one of our stores became part of a very different working day.

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There was a great deal to learn, and there still is.

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But the purpose was worth preserving: to continue the work we believed in and make our products, knowledge, and services available to people who wanted them.

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Casaroma Wellness Today

Today, Casaroma Wellness continues as a mother-and-daughter business based in Nova Scotia, serving customers across Canada through our online store, custom-formulated products, educational resources, and remote wellness consultations.

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Aromatherapy remains at the centre of our work, supported by decades of formulation experience and formal education. Over the years, we have also developed knowledge and practical experience in nutrition and lifestyle guidance, Reiki, bodywork, biofeedback, and complementary energy-based wellness practices.

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Our approach to nutrition reflects a philosophy that extends throughout our business:

Whole Food. Whole Person. Whole Life.

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We recognize that food, movement, sleep, stress, personal circumstances, and everyday habits are connected. Understanding a person's needs involves listening to their experience and considering what will realistically fit into their life.

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Allana continues to work extensively with biofeedback and other wellness practices, while LyzaLee combines her aromatherapy, nutrition, Reiki, Reflexology, and complementary wellness background in her consultations and product development.

We offer remote services to clients across Canada, along with selected in-house appointments at our private wellness location in East Hants, Nova Scotia. Because this is a private home-based practice, new in-house clients complete a complimentary approval process before booking.

Our work looks different from the days when customers walked up to our market table at Alderney Landing, but we continue to value the conversations, questions, and personal relationships that have always been part of Casaroma.

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Still Mother and Daughter, Still Learning

When we look back at the beginning of Casaroma, it is remarkable how much grew from two decisions to spend more time with family.

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We didn't set out to build a large retail chain. We wanted to do work we enjoyed, help people with the knowledge we were developing, and create a business that allowed us to remain close to the people we loved.

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Along the way, we have gained an extended family of customers, colleagues, students, and friends who have contributed to our story in ways they may never fully realize.

There have been new beginnings, difficult endings, unexpected opportunities, plenty of laughter, and more than a few occasions when we have had to figure things out as we went along.

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More than thirty years later, we are still working together, still learning, and still finding new ways to share what we know.

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We are glad you have found your way to Casaroma.

 

Allana & LyzaLee

Mother, Daughter & Co-Founders of Casaroma Wellness

 

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